[Mb-civic] FW: All about the MKO !

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From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 11:47:40 -0500
Subject: All about the MKO !

Monsters of the Left: The Mujahedin al-Khalq
By Michael Rubin
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 13, 2006

Few terrorists groups garner the bipartisan endorsement and support that
Iran¹s Mujahedin al-Khalq Organization [MKO] has.  On October 20, 2005,
several congressmen and many aides attended a briefing in Congress.  Maryam
Rajavi, co-leader of the group and self-styled president-elect of Iran,
addressed the gathering by video from France.[1]  She received a warm
reception.  Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) thanked ³Sister Maryam.²[2]  A
bipartisan group of U.S. Congressmen have signed petitions calling for the
U.S. Department of State to lift its 1997 classification of the group as a
terrorist organization.[3]  In an April 8, 2003 interview, Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House International Relations
Committee¹s Central Asia and Middle East Subcommittee said, ³This group
loves the United States. They're assisting us in the war on terrorism;
they're pro-U.S. This group has not been fighting against the U.S. It's
simply not true."[4] Ros-Lehtinen is wrong.  

Unfortunately, hers is a mistake common to some on the left and the right
who care deeply about Iranian freedom but fail to understand the nature of a
group which, in public, says the right things about freedom and democracy
but, in reality is dedicated to the opposite.  Maryam Rajavi and her husband
Masud are adept at public relations and adroit at reinvention, but the
organization over which they preside eschews democracy and embraces
terrorism, autocracy, and Marxism.

Origins

The roots of the MKO lie in the early 1960s.  For years, clerical and feudal
interests had blocked real reform in Iran.  Society was paralyzed.  In 1961,
under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Shah appointed as prime
minister ŒAli Amini, an Iranian aristocrat and former ambassador to the
United States, whom Washington respected as a reformer.  Amini began to
challenge the traditional classes and interest groups who had long hampered
reform.   In January 1962, the Shah decreed Iran¹s first real land reform.
The Shah assumed the mantle of reforming crusader. He launched ³the
Shah-People Revolution,² better known as the ³White Revolution.² Its six
points were: land reform, nationalization of forests, sale of
government-owned factories to finance land reform, women¹s suffrage, a
Literacy Corps in which conscripts could serve as an alternative to the
army, and distribution to workers of part of factories¹ profits.  Such
reform cut deep into the fabric of Iranian society, angering social
conservatives, clerics, and xenophobic nationalists.

Against this backdrop and angered by both the growing secularization of
Iranian politics and the influx of foreigners, engineer and Islamic activist
Mehdi Bazargan formed the Liberation Movement of Iran.  His goal was to
combine Iranian nationalism with Islamism.  ³We refuse to divorce religion
from politicsŠ because ShiŒi Islam is an integral part of our popular
culture,²[5] the group stated in its inaugural declaration.  Ayatollah
Mahmud Taleqani, a free-thinking and modernizing cleric introduced to
Marxist thought while imprisoned in the 1930s, became a mentor to Bazargan
who, in turn, would become provisional prime minister during the first days
of the 1979 revolution.
In July 1962, Amini resigned in anger over both the Shah¹s military spending
and anger at what he considered the stinginess of other U.S. aid.  Chaos
reigned supreme.  The ayatollahs seized the initiative.  Islamic groups
marched against social reforms and the new laws which restricted the
clergy¹s traditional privileges.  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rose to
prominence as the head of the clerical opposition.

By 1963, what little tolerance the Shah had for the opposition evaporated. 
On June 5, 1963, he ordered Khomeini¹s arrest.  Rioting erupted and ended
only after the police killed several hundred students and demonstrators.

Ironically, even as the Shah¹s crackdown sent oppositionists underground,
his reforms catalyzed their growth. State scholarships enabled a far greater
range of Iranians to receive higher education than at any previous time in
history.  University campuses became incubators of opposition.  Young
radicals looked abroad and drew inspiration from revolutionary movements in
Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba, and elsewhere.

The Birth of the Mujahedin-i Khalq

Following the 1963 crackdown, Bazargan¹s Liberation Movement splintered.
While older members drew inspiration from the left-leaning nationalist and
ousted Prime Minister Muhammad Musaddiq who flirted with mob violence but
did not sanction terrorism, many younger members argued political reform
impossible and embraced armed struggle.  These younger members, including a
University of Tehran political science student named Masud Rajavi, coalesced
into a discussion group which, in 1965, would form the Mujahedin al-Khalq. 
It would be another seven years before the MKO would emerge from its
self-imposed veil of secrecy and declare itself to the wider world.

The MKO preached a combination of Marxism and Islamism.   They argued that
not only did God create the world, but he also set forth a historical
evolution in which a classless society would supplant capitalist inequity. 
Such a radical re-interpretation of Islam bred division, not only with the
secular and capitalist state, but also with the traditional, conservative
clergy which resented the MKO argument that ³ShiŒi Œulama [religious
scholars], just like the Sunnis, have failed to grasp the real essence of
QurŒanic dynamism.²[6]  Rajavi and other MKO ideologues reinterpreted
religion to justify terrorism.  Death during armed struggle, they said, was
consistent with traditional ShiŒi glorification of martyrdom.  They created
a precedent from which they and later terrorist groups like Lebanese
Hizbullah could and did justify suicide bombing, a plague which afflicts the
region to the present.          

In order to prepare itself for armed struggle, the MKO reached out to the
Palestinian Liberation Organization.  In 1970, several leading MKO,
including Rajavi received terrorist training in PLO camps in Jordan and
Lebanon.  The group subsequently cemented links to the Libyan regime of
MuŒammar Qadhafi and to the People¹s Democratic Republic of Yemen, the
Soviet Union¹s Arabian Peninsula satellite.

The MKO¹s first attempt to create a terrorist spectacle failed.  A prison
informant betrayed their plans to blow up a power station to disrupt the
1971 celebrations surrounding the 2500th anniversary of the Persian
monarchy.  An attempt to kidnap the Shah¹s nephew also failed.  However, the
subsequent trial and execution of those involved bolstered the prestige of
the organization.  At his trial, Rajavi gave a rousing anti-imperialist
speech in which he accused the United States, western banks, and
multinational corporations of most of Iran and the developing world¹s ills. 
³The main goal now,² Rajavi declared, ³is to free Iran of U.S.
imperialism.²[7]  The military tribunal was harsh: They condemned 11 MKO
leaders, including Rajavi, to death.  The Iranian government commuted the
sentences of one co-conspirator and Rajavi to life imprisonment after
Rajavi¹s brother launched an international clemency campaign.  The execution
of the MKO¹s founders and so many early members positioned Rajavi well to
consolidate organization control upon his January 1979 release. 

While dealt a mighty blow, the MKO rebounded.  It recruited new members in
Iranian high schools, universities, prisons, and among the thousands of
Iranian university students studying in Western Europe and the United
States.  The group also established a radio station in Baghdad from which to
broadcast anti-regime propaganda into Iran.  The MKO latched onto the
teachings of the left-leaning Ayatollah ŒAli Shariati, who openly preached a
similar but less radical message.  They used Shariati¹s preaching as a
launching point for underground discussion and indoctrination.

The imprisonment and execution of its leadership did not eviscerate the
organization.  It soon struck again.  In May 30 and 31, 1972, shortly before
President Richard Nixon¹s state visit to Iran, the MKO launched a wave of
bomb attacks which targeted the Iran-American Society, the U.S. Information
Office, the Hotel International, Pepsi Cola, General Motors, and the Marine
Oil Company.  They failed to assassinate General Harold Price, head of the
U.S. Military Mission in Iran.  Less than three months later, they bombed
the Jordanian embassy to revenge King Hussein¹s September 1970 crackdown on
their PLO patrons.  In 1973, the MKO bombed the Pan-American Airlines
building, Shell Oil, and Radio City Cinema in Tehran, and assassinated
Colonel Lewis Hawkins, the deputy chief of the U.S. military mission.  They
did not only target foreigners.  In a wave of bombings that continued into
1975, the MKO group attacked clubs, stores, police facilities,
minority-owned businesses, factories it accused of having ³Israeli
connections,² and symbols of state and capitalism.

Not all was well within the MKO leadership.  In 1975, the group divided into
a Marxist faction that eschewed Islam, and a Muslim faction which did not. 
Baruch College historian Ervand Abrahamian, whose dispassionate and academic
study of the MKO is the most thorough, argued that the shift of many MKO
leaders to Marxism stemmed had three causes: Disillusionment with Ayatollah
Khomeini, inability to win over the secular intelligentsia, and the
influence of other radical groups like the Feda¹iyan.[8]  Rajavi headed the
Muslim Mujahedin branch in Qasr prison.    Both groups continued their
attacks on government and Western targets, all the while striking at each
other.  While the Marxist MKO was unsuccessful in an attempt to assassinate
a senior U.S. diplomat, it killed three American employees of Rockwell
International.

The Islamic Revolution

While both MKO factions participated in the Islamic Revolution, the Muslim
MKO found shelter under the banner of Taleqani and rode the Revolution to
prominence.  They claimed some credit for the seizure of the U.S. embassy
and subsequent hostage taking, and later demonstrated against their
release.  The Muslim faction did not eschew Marxism.  Rajavi and the MKO
supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and opposed the Afghan
mujahedin struggling against it.
In the wake of the Islamic Revolution, Rajavi consolidated his control over
the organization.[9]  Rajavi divided the leadership into a Politburo and a
Central Committee, and created a number of organizations to recruit and
train new members.  This proliferation of front organization, all serving an
ideological and disciplined leadership, remains characteristic of the group
today.

It was not long before Rajavi and the MKO came into conflict with the
clerical circles surrounding Khomeini.  Relations between the MKO and
Khomeini had been long strained.  While Khomeini¹s theological justification
of clerical rule was a radical reworking of traditional ShiŒi jurisprudence,
he was otherwise conservative.  He considered the MKO¹s blending of Islam
with Marxism, as well as the group¹s denial of past jurisprudence, to be
anathema.  When an MKO delegation had visited Khomeini in Najaf in 1972,
rather than offer the support they sought, he lectured them on true Islam.  

Within a year of Khomeini¹s return to Iran, his followers began to label
Rajavi and the MKO ³unbelievers² and ³hypocrites.²  The MKO, in return,
accused Khomeini of hijacking the revolution and imposing dictatorship. 
Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini promised the masses Islamic
democracy, even as he consolidated dictatorship.  The MKO sought to
replicate his strategy, for practical, not idealistic, aims.

Khomeini had the upper hand, though. He closed the group¹s offices, banned
its papers, and forced the MKO underground.  The MKO was not his only
target, though.  As he consolidated power, he moved against President
Abulhasan Bani Sadr[10] whose independence and moderation undercut
Khomeini¹s theocratic ambitions.  While Bani Sadr did not join the MKO, he
formed a tacit alliance with the group which, in turn, benefited from the
President¹s prestige.

Both Bani Sadr and the MKO called for national protests on June 20, 1980,
and demonstrators heeded their call.  Perhaps a half million poured into the
streets in Tehran; many more turned out in cities across Iran.  But Khomeini
and his supporters in the Islamic Republic Party were ready.  They labeled
anyone marching in support of the MKO to be enemies of God, subject to
summary execution.  They kept their word.  Khomeini¹s followers killed
hundreds.  The warden of Evin Prison, Tehran¹s main political prison,
bragged of his execution of teenage girls.

Khomeini¹s opponents responded.  Terrorists‹their affiliation unclear‹blew
up the Islamic Republic Party headquarters, killing hardline Ayatollah
Mohammed Hosseini Beheshti, founder of the Islamic Republic¹s judiciary, and
72 party members.  Khomeini used the attack as reason to accelerate his
purge.  A reign of terror began.  Thousands perished before Islamic Republic
firing squads and upon its gallows.  As Khomeini consolidated control,
Iranians¹ willingness to support for the MKO evaporated.

The MKO did not surrender, though. It drove its terrorist campaign to a
fever pitch, assassinating several hundred regime officials and
Revolutionary Guards, and bombing the homes and offices of clerics.  The
group also targeted judges who passed sentence against their members.  The
MKO used suicide bombers with deadly effect, killing in separate incidents
the Friday prayer leaders of Tehran and Shiraz.  At its peak in July 1982,
the group assassinated, on average, three regime officials per day;
publicly, the MKO has claimed responsibility for the murders of over 10,000
people in Iran since 1981.  But while the terrorist campaign shook the
Islamic Republic to its core, it also claimed many innocent victims.

Rajavi and Bani Sadr both fled to Paris during Khomeini¹s crackdown.  While
Bani Sadr and others had joined with the MKO under the banner of the
National Council, such formal ties were short-lived.  By 1984 the former
president and many other groups left the umbrella, upset with the MKO¹s
ideology and Rajavi¹s dictatorial tendencies.
Still more MKO supporters fled to Iraq, where they accepted the protection
of President Saddam Hussein.  What little support the group had once enjoyed
in Iran evaporated, as Iranians saw the MKO rally in support of a dictator
who launched a war that, by its conclusion in 1988, killed several hundred
thousand Iranians.  Ordinary Iranians are quite vocal in their hatred of the
Islamic Republic and ridicule its current Supreme Leader ŒAli KhameneŒi. 
Many ask about Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of the late Shah.  Others
speak of other opposition groups, and many more rally to the names of the
Islamic Republic¹s own dissidents.  But, without exception, all spew venom
toward the MKO.  The group violence and its betrayal of Iranian nationalism
lost it all popular support in Iran.

Nor did the MKO win Iraqi support.  Iraqi intelligence coordinated MKO
activities.[11]  Iraqi Kurds and ShiŒa accuse the group of participating in
reprisals against Iraqi civilians following the March 1991 uprising. 
According to Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, ³Up
until the fall of the regime, they were part and parcel of the Iraqi
military. And they were heavily involved in suppressing the Kurdish uprising
of 1991.²[12]

Reinvention

While the MKO lost both its revolutionary power struggle and the battle for
Iranian hearts and minds, Rajavi has worked tirelessly to reinvent the MKO¹s
image.  Again, he sought power in and sympathy from so many members¹
martyrdom.  At first, the group reached out to its old leftist and Arab
nationalist patrons in Algeria, Lebanon, and among the PLO.  It also sent
delegations to the Italian and Greek Communist Parties, the Indian Socialist
Party, and the British Labour Party.  It found a sympathetic audience among
left-leaning human rights organization and academics.  The group targeted
European parliamentarians.  More than 3,000 parliamentarians signed a 1986
petition of support.[13]

The admission of Ayatollah Hossein ŒAli Montazeri, long-time Khomeini
deputy, that Khomeini ordered the executions of 3,000 incarcerated MKO
allowed the organization to further play the martyr card.[14]   The National
Council of Resistance¹s website describes an international organization with
³official contacts with most European countriesŠ [and] amicable relations
with Middle Eastern nations.²  The group has continued its petition drives. 
Congressional aides describe how the group sends pretty young women into the
halls of Congress and various parliaments with innocuous petitions.  Most
lawmakers have little idea of the baggage the group carries.  The MKO
devotees get results.  The group brags, ³In 1992, in a joint global
initiative, 1,500 parliamentarians declared their support for the NCR as the
democratic alternative to the Khomeini regime. This included a majority in
the US House of Representatives.²[15] Abrahamian speculated that the MKO
sought to replicate the PLO¹s strategy of winning recognition as the
representatives of the Palestinian people through the international
community.  It continues to post endorsements, many taken out of context, on
its website.[16]

Within the United States, MKO members tell Congressmen, their staffs, and
other policymakers what they want to hear:  That the MKO is the only
opposition movement capable of ousting the unpopular and repressive Islamic
Republic.  They are slick.  Friendly lawmakers and commentators get
Christmas baskets full of nuts and sweets.  Well-dressed and well-spoken
representatives of MKO front organizations approach American writers,
politicians, and pundits who are critical of the regime.
The enemy of an adversary is not necessarily a friend, though.  Such is the
logic that caused State Department realists in the Reagan administration to
support a dictator like Saddam Hussein.  The MKO have little in their record
to suggest democracy to be a goal.  While they opposed the Islamic Republic
only after Khomeini purged them from power, the group sought to replace
Khomeini¹s dictatorship with its own.  They omit and often deny their past
anti-U.S. and anti-Western terrorism.

Today, Masud Rajavi‹and his second wife Maryam‹work to impose totalitarian
control over its membership.  Portraits of Masud and Maryam loom large in
MKO demonstrations and facilities.  In the West, the group forbids its
members from reading anything but MKO newspapers and publications.  Many MKO
live in communal households and participate in mandatory study groups.  In
Camp Ashraf, Iraq, where many members sit in limbo following Saddam¹s fall,
MKO minders enforce celibacy, employ cult methods to break down individual
will, and shield members from unsupervised exposure to outsiders.[17]

How the Left Empowers the MKO Today

Prior to Iraq¹s liberation, there was rare interagency agreement about the
MKO within the U.S. government.  From Foggy Bottom to the Pentagon to the
Old Executive Office Building, there was rare unanimity.  As a terrorist
organization closely allied with Saddam¹s regime, the MKO should be
considered combatants if they raised arms, and prisoners if they did not. 
The Islamic Republic might want the group for crimes both real and imagined,
but the fate of MKO stranded in Iraq would ultimately rest with the new
Iraqi judiciary, which might want to try individual members for atrocities
committed in 1991.

During Iraq¹s liberation, U.S. troops surrounded Camp Ashraf, the main MKO
base in Iraq.  Those MKO who did not flee during the war stood down.  The
U.S. military confined 3,800 MKO ³security detainees² in the Camp.[18]  The
Iranian government demanded forced repatriation and, through intermediaries,
offered to trade al-Qaeda members sheltering in Iran for MKO members
captured in Iraq.  This offer was refused for three reasons: The priority of
the Iraqi judiciary in the matter, Iran¹s own lack of due process, and the
fact that belief that Iran should turn over al-Qaeda terrorists in the
interest of justice, not for a quid pro quo.

How did the Left subsequently bolster Rajavi and empower the MKO? On May 10,
2003 Agence France Presse quoted General Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th
Infantry Division, as saying, ³I would say that any organization that has
given up their equipment to the coalition clearly is cooperating with us,
and I believe that should lead to a review of whether they are still a
terrorist organization or not.²  Odierno¹s statement was unwise.  He had no
authorization to make such a comment nor did it reflect anything but his own
opinion.  The MKO are masters of propaganda; he was unaware of the group¹s
history.  Complacency in the face of an opponent¹s overwhelming firepower
makes an adversary smart, not democratic.

The gaffe made, the Pentagon fumbled its response.  Its policy hierarchy and
public affairs machinery were more effective at editing each others¹ grammar
than at damage control.  Despite subsequent interagency clarifications,
left-wing pundits and academic conspiracy theorists went into overdrive. 
They knowingly conflated a single general¹s off-hand remark into a statement
of policy, and then they conflated the uniformed services with civilian
staff.  ³ŠThe Neocons in the Pentagon have some sort of weird alliance with
the MEK [MKO] mad bombers,² University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole
wrote.[19]  Cole¹s anti-Semitic and partisan-driven conspiracy theories
played into Rajavi¹s hands by enabling the group to project a false image of
support where none existed.  Partisan bloggers like Laura Rozen, off-kilter
academics like Cole and Brown University anthropologist William O. Beeman,
Knight-Ridder and Washington Post correspondents, and New York Times¹
columnists, repeated the story, substituting hypothesis for fact, citing
each other and justifying their beliefs with anonymous sources.  None can
produce an iota of evidence.  While the MKO has the support of a handful of
congressmen and a small number pundits, Rajavi has no support in the power
centers of Washington.  Nevertheless, he bolsters his supporters¹ morale and
basks in the claim of support, however false.

Even in the era of resurgent realism, some issues should remain absolute. 
Terrorism, the deliberate targeting of civilians for political gain, should
never be acceptable.  Mitigating factors do not exist.  True, in August 2003
the MKO exposed Iran¹s covert nuclear enrichment program.  It continues to
penetrate Iran¹s defenses and assassinate its opponents.  This, though, is
more a result of corruption and the Islamic Republic¹s crumbling control
over its periphery.  The MKO‹and any other group‹can bribe officials and
penetrate defenses.  This should not give reason, on the hundredth
anniversary of Iran¹s Constitutional Revolution, to advance or reward
Rajavi¹s life-long megalomaniacal quest for power and his backward blend of
Marxism and Islamism.  Many ³monsters of the left² use the rhetoric of
democracy to realize their ambition.  Masud and Maryam Rajavi, and the
organization over which they exert dictatorial control, are no exception. 
The Islamic Republic of Iran victimizes its people and threatens U.S. and
regional security.  The solution to the problem rests, not with empowering a
group or individuals just as bad, but rather in supporting the Iranian
people in their quest for liberty, freedom, and democracy.

ENDNOTES:
[1] For the text of Rajavi¹s speech, see:
http://ncr-iran.org/content/view/476/1/
[2] Guy Dinmore.  ³Iran Opposition Groups seeks US Legitimacy.²  Financial
Times.  October 6, 2005.
[3] For the State Department background and justification of the MKO
terrorist classification, see:
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31711.htm.  For the U.S. Treasury
Department¹s Office of Foreign Asset Control designation, see:
http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/actions/20030815.shtml
[4] The Hill.  April 8, 2003. 
http://www.hillnews.com/news/040803/roslehtinen.aspx
[5] Quoted in Ervand Abrahamian.  The Iranian Mojahedin.  (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1989), 83.  Much of this article¹s description of the
MKO¹s early history is drawn from Abrahamian¹s account.
[6] Cheguneh QurŒan Biamuzim (How to Study the QurŒan), as quoted in
Abrahamian, 97.
[7] As quoted in Abrahamian, 135.
[8] Abrahamian, 149.
[9] U.S. Department of State.  ³Background Information: National Council of
Resistence, Moslem Iranian Students Society, Iran Relief Fund, People¹s
Mojaheddin Organization of Iran, Mojahedin-e-Khalq, Iran Liberation, Iranian
People¹s Resistance.²  March 13, 1986.
[10] Bani Sadr¹s website: http://www.banisadr.com.fr/
[11] Ibrahim al-Marashi.  ³Iraq¹s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide
and Analysis.²  Middle East Review of International Affairs.  September
2002.  http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html
[12] Eli Lake.  ³Iranian Group Asks State To Lift Terror Designation.²  New
York Sun.  April 15, 2005.
[13] Abrahamian, 245.
[14] Grand Ayatollah Hossein ŒAli Montzeri.  Khatarat-i Ayatollah Montazeri.
(Spanga, Sweden: Baran, 2000), 243-251.
[15] See: ³International Support² on the official website of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran
http://www.iran-e-azad.org/english/ncri.html#intsup
[16] See: ³Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance
of Iran.² http://www.ncr-iran.org/
[17] Elizabeth Rubin.  ³The Cult of Rajavi.²  The New York Times.  July 13,
2003.
[18] Agence France Press, Sept. 18, 2003.
[19] 
http://www.juancole.com/2004/08/republican-convention-we-did-not-seek.html
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